Recently, Jonathan Sharp commented on class roles and balance philosophies. Here's what he had to say:

Jonathan Sharp, Game Designer said:

Class balance philosophies
We normally try to employ metered and controlled balance changes with each pass, rather than huge reductions or improvements to classes. We want to get all classes on the same playing field, and we want to avoid “whack-a-mole” style balance. HUGH increases and HUGE decreases lead to meta instability, and thusly, we try to make multiple small tweaks rather than putting in massive changes that we have to later correct.
When designing and balancing the classes, we try to make sure that class roles and identities stay intact. So, in doing so, we make sure that there are rules and boundaries outlining the capabilities and weaknesses of each class.

Warrior

We want the Warrior to be capable of good melee damage in a sturdy body. They can still do some decent damage at range, but they aren’t as good at it as the Ranger (with their pet). They have a hard time taking enemy boons down, and instead, have to just go through them with raw force. They may have a hard time with enemy conditions, and may need to ask for ally help in order to keep themselves free of hampering conditions.

Guardian

The Guardian is a heavy armor class who relies on boons to make up for their low levels of innate health. They focus on area control and punishing enemies for the position on the battlefield. We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. They can remove conditions more easily than the Warrior, but share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.

Ranger

The ranger class combines its own innate abilities with the skills of their pets. We’ve balanced the class around the idea that you always have a pet with you to aid in any fight. The fact that the ranger can have multiple pets allows them to combine their pets in ways that most impact the current fight. We want the Ranger to have some of the evasion enjoyed by the Thief, as well as the mobility other classes employ. The class is able to deal physical or condition damage, and it can do this in melee or at range.

Engineer

The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

Thief

Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.

Mesmer

Mesmers rely on illusions in order to accomplish their goals. They need illusions to accomplish some of their highest damage and control, and without the illusions, they become fairly fragile. They can deal with enemy boons better than most classes, but enemy conditions can often be a problem. They share some of the stealth and mobility that the Thief enjoys, but suffer from a low health pool if you get past all their tricks.

Ele

We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elementalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

Necro

The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes, and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher. While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights. They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.

Going forward

Tank vs spike vs physical DPS vs condie DPS. We want to keep making balance changes that allow all classes to have various builds they can use. We don’t want tanks dominating the game, and we don’t want spike builds dominating. It’s healthy to have multiple types of builds in the meta, so we’ll be improving the balance to facilitate a healthy meta.

AOE balance. We feel that in PvP some AOE builds are too strong for the opportunity cost, and we’ll be bringing those in line in the next few patches.

I personally like the meta right now. No class feels too overpowered when you are playing them. I also don't feel to under-powered when playing a class to the specialty it was designed for. In other words, I'm very happy with this game Thank you ANet.

Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.

Really?
Are we still sticking to our dumb-ass guns?

EDIT:

Quote

AOE balance. We feel that in PvP some AOE builds are too strong for the opportunity cost, and we’ll be bringing those in line in the next few patches.

Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game.

So this has convinced me that the Developers don't really play this game... at all. They also apparently don't listen to those of us who do, The fact that they think it's completely okay that thieves have the best resource system in the game, the best class ability (stealth), the highest burst, the most mobility and the most "oh shit" buttons and are still somehow "balanced" because they can be caught in aoe or are subject to condition damage is beyond inane. Honestly I have no idea why the Developers refuse to listen to the massive amount of negative feedback on how the class operates in spvp and wvw and go around patting each other on the back thinking they've achieved anything resembling balance in this class.

So this has convinced me that the Developers don't really play this game... at all. They also apparently don't listen to those of us who do, The fact that they think it's completely okay that thieves have the best resource system in the game, the best class ability (stealth), the highest burst, the most mobility and the most "oh shit" buttons and are still somehow "balanced" because they can be caught in aoe or are subject to condition damage is beyond inane. Honestly I have no idea why the Developers refuse to listen to the massive amount of negative feedback on how the class operates in spvp and wvw and go around patting each other on the back thinking they've achieved anything resembling balance in this class.

Reading this makes me wonder if you've even played a thief past level 30.

initiative is not the best resource in the game. It requires you to think about attacks and timing. Failure to properly use your initiative can leave you in a really bad situation. It's a class that lets you choose to either dump all your dmg at one point and start dodging attacks, or put out avg dmg over long periods of time. Just because you don't comprehend the cons of the class does not mean it's over powered.

There is nothing wrong with the class. All these complaints sound exactly like the complainers from WoW who constantly called OP on rogues.

Reading this makes me wonder if you've even played a thief past level 30.

initiative is not the best resource in the game. It requires you to think about attacks and timing. Failure to properly use your initiative can leave you in a really bad situation. It's a class that lets you choose to either dump all your dmg at one point and start dodging attacks, or put out avg dmg over long periods of time. Just because you don't comprehend the cons of the class does not mean it's over powered.

There is nothing wrong with the class. All these complaints sound exactly like the complainers from WoW who constantly called OP on rogues.

I think he's strictly talking PvP, where Thieves are much stronger. I could be wrong though.

Tank vs spike vs physical DPS vs condie DPS. We want to keep making balance changes that allow all classes to have various builds they can use. We don’t want tanks dominating the game, and we don’t want spike builds dominating. It’s healthy to have multiple types of builds in the meta, so we’ll be improving the balance to facilitate a healthy meta.

Hopefully this means they'll do something about the insane amount of damage a greatsword warrior can put out, because honestly, even with a 12 stack of might they take out mobs faster than I can on my engi using condition armor, and grenades that have bleed and vulnerability,

I think people are missing the.point of.their class descriptions. This is simply their design philosophy and the parameters in which they will stay within while balancing classes. This isn't saying that all classes are balanced but rather that we as players shouldn't expect large changes that alter the base layout of what ArenaNet has decided for what each class should be. That said I do hope they give more specifics on some balance issues in the near future.

The necro paragraph seems like they ran out of things to say and just pulled that out of their ***. Truth is, the class roles and flavors are not distinct enough. The whole system is homogenized. I laughed after reading this. They must be delusional.

People need to understand that Thieves sacrifice lots and i mean LOTS of survivability in order to do the crazy burst damage they have.

Stop whining, it's the Thief's role. It's one of the "Killers" of the group, and the one you need to pay most attention to.

Guardians have their insane healing/tanking/survibability/boons
Ele has it's awesome versatiliy
Engie has insane crowd control
...
Thiefs have the ability to kill fast (and luckily hardly 14-15k HP and non-existing toughness), that's their role most of the time. Really is NOT that hard to kill a thief, even with their stealth mechanic. (Hint: bring immobilize/knockdowns)

So this has convinced me that the Developers don't really play this game... at all. They also apparently don't listen to those of us who do, The fact that they think it's completely okay that thieves have the best resource system in the game, the best class ability (stealth), the highest burst, the most mobility and the most "oh shit" buttons and are still somehow "balanced" because they can be caught in aoe or are subject to condition damage is beyond inane. Honestly I have no idea why the Developers refuse to listen to the massive amount of negative feedback on how the class operates in spvp and wvw and go around patting each other on the back thinking they've achieved anything resembling balance in this class.

I'm glad ANet don't listen to the QQ and are sticking to their own class balance philosophy.

Reading this makes me wonder if you've even played a thief past level 30.

initiative is not the best resource in the game. It requires you to think about attacks and timing. Failure to properly use your initiative can leave you in a really bad situation. It's a class that lets you choose to either dump all your dmg at one point and start dodging attacks, or put out avg dmg over long periods of time. Just because you don't comprehend the cons of the class does not mean it's over powered.

There is nothing wrong with the class. All these complaints sound exactly like the complainers from WoW who constantly called OP on rogues.

You're funny, and deluded if you think that initiative + no skill cooldowns isn't he best resource system in the game, In fact if you believe that then I wonder if you've played any other classes at all. But clearly I'm just bringing up non-issues... so lets go to the 28 page thread on the forums debating these "non issues".

Funny too, I looked around the other classes forums and I couldn't seem to find anything like that there, but yea lets go with I'm just making baseless claims and there is no reason that thread is exists in the thief section alone. Also stop trying to play the martyr when you say "failure to properly use your initiative can leave you in a really bad situation" what you really mean is you would have to use stealth and retreat until you regen some initiative and try again, must be nice to be able to have so much control of when and how you engage in combat, I wouldn't know of course since most classes don't get to enjoy anything as defining as stealth.

People need to understand that Thieves sacrifice lots and i mean LOTS of survivability in order to do the crazy burst damage they have.

Stop whining, it's the Thief's role. It's one of the "Killers" of the group, and the one you need to pay most attention to.

Bingo↑

Playing as a decently durable, but mostly offensive nec, or with my overly defensive guardian, I find stupid thieves go down extremely quickly and rarely even get a chance to output dangerous damage. Skilled thieves can be an issue, but if they're glass cannon(and they usually are) they go down in seconds, even without me having a full investment into damage. Thieves are extremely fragile and them having higher damage isn't an issue.

That said, initiative, because of its design, is extremely difficult to balance, and it can make button-mash tard tactics more powerful than they should be. Heartseeker spam, even after its damage reduction, can still knock off a lot of health and kill quite easily for simply mashing 2 over and over. Couple this with the fact that thief traits offer a buzzillion ways to regenerate initiative and tard tactics with thief become significantly stronger than tard tactics with other professions(with the possible exception of mesmer).

I don't have an issue with the damage thieves output. I have just have an issue with how easy it is to button mash with thief and the whole perma-invis thing which still doesn't seem to be fixed.

Playing as a decently durable, but mostly offensive nec, or with my overly defensive guardian, I find stupid thieves go down extremely quickly and rarely even get a chance to output dangerous damage. Skilled thieves can be an issue, but if they're glass cannon(and they usually are) they go down in seconds, even without me having a full investment into damage. Thieves are extremely fragile and them having higher damage isn't an issue.

That said, initiative, because of its design, is extremely difficult to balance, and it can make button-mash tard tactics more powerful than they should be. Heartseeker spam, even after its damage reduction, can still knock off a lot of health and kill quite easily for simply mashing 2 over and over. Couple this with the fact that thief traits offer a buzzillion ways to regenerate initiative and tard tactics with thief become significantly stronger than tard tactics with other professions(with the possible exception of mesmer).

I don't have an issue with the damage thieves output. I have just have an issue with how easy it is to button mash with thief and the whole perma-invis thing which still doesn't seem to be fixed.

I agree wholeheartedly, it seems Thief will forever be the PUG-insta-gib class, but I don't mind. That just leaves more easy prey for me.

Playing as a decently durable, but mostly offensive nec, or with my overly defensive guardian, I find stupid thieves go down extremely quickly and rarely even get a chance to output dangerous damage. Skilled thieves can be an issue, but if they're glass cannon(and they usually are) they go down in seconds, even without me having a full investment into damage. Thieves are extremely fragile and them having higher damage isn't an issue.

That said, initiative, because of its design, is extremely difficult to balance, and it can make button-mash tard tactics more powerful than they should be. Heartseeker spam, even after its damage reduction, can still knock off a lot of health and kill quite easily for simply mashing 2 over and over. Couple this with the fact that thief traits offer a buzzillion ways to regenerate initiative and tard tactics with thief become significantly stronger than tard tactics with other professions(with the possible exception of mesmer).

I don't have an issue with the damage thieves output. I have just have an issue with how easy it is to button mash with thief and the whole perma-invis thing which still doesn't seem to be fixed.

I very much agree with this.

In WvW i play a L80 thief, ranger and engineer, and a L50 guardian. I think I do understand how some classes work against one another.

My thief is specced full stealth and survivablilty. I run behind the lines a lot, and annoy supply lines and reinforcements where i can. Note, i do not always kill things, as my dps, as a result of all my survival skills, is not what it could be compared to a glass cannon build. However, the point is not always to kill 1v1, it is a war, not a duel where you are better than me and vice versa. Slowing reinforcements down, making them chase me is as effective as killing them. I survive the encounter and go annoy someone else.

With my ranger, I have no problem whatsoever burning down glass cannon thieves, rangers have enough at their disposal to deal with non stealth spammin thieves, as do other classes. If its a thief like mine, there is a fair chance they cant kill me, and are simply anoying me, stopping me engaging other targets, by threatening to jump on my back.

In all honesty, whilst i agree that the game is not balanced perfectly, it is blanced enough to enable people to play in various ways and perform various functions on the battlefield, and I do beleive that a lot of the whining about this class and that class is simply from people who believe that all classes should function the same, how bloody boring would it be then??

I am too old and long in the tooth to throw the modern phrase L2P around, but would sincerely ask people to learn to enjoy the diversity of their class roles and learn to be useful in WvW rather than a duellist. If you rolled the wrong class and it does not suit your playstyle, roll another, i work 50 hours a week,have a family i spend time with and still manage to casually run 3 L80's, this game is a peice of cake.

Too many dueling kiddies and not enough real discussions in every GW2 forums I've visited lately.

The game is 'balanced', trouble is both ends of the balance being too extreme. We can see ANET intended for glass thief/mesmer/warr to get a target from 100 to 10 in under 5 seconds (having kept thief's backstab combo largely unchanged in 2 patches), and have bunker guardians to sit on a node for 2 - 3 mins with self healing. Bring those two closer to the middle range and we may start seeing some build diversity. Right now direct damage burst is just too effective compare to all else, no one lives long enough to care about 25 stacks of might/vuln or 33% less healing from poison, so burst and bunkers more or less dictates the meta game.

I'll wager the AoE issue Jon Sharp mentioned is related to WvW, specifically any AoE with a fire/bleed condition.

Here is one MMO standard, Anet adopted 100%, letting the pvp tail wag the pve dog. All this rigamarole to 'balance PVP' when most players spend 99% of their time in PVE and many never pvp. It is sad to see they shackled themselves to this.

His and/or the devs clear love child is the Elementalist and they nerf every other class so as to not be more powerful than this squishy class. The number of attacks and conditions in the ele's arsenal is astounding compared to the paltry tool set given to the warrior.

I find these comments hillarious. Most of the ranger talk is about the pet, and it's almost universilly agreed the pet is pathetic. Aside from a few gimmick builds and very niche uses, the pet is one of the worst implemented class mechanics (when it comes to being less than what it should be, stealth is the worst implemented because of culling, but that makes it more than it should be). There is very little pet diversity in specific arenas, dungeons usually involve ranged pets or bears, PvP usually involves dogs and general PvE is usually cats. Not once have I felt like swapping pets combines ways for me to most impact the fight. Most pets are near useless against moving targets (still) and few pets have skills which truly impact a fight in a meaningful and well implemented way.

The thief description basically reads as "designed to hard counter most rangers". Unless you have a perfectly timed barrage (combined with your opponent's poor positioning) or possibly the great sword (I doubt this even makes a difference) a thief is going to roll you. Rangers have shit AoE (outside of traps, which are very situational and not run by a lot of rangers) so as soon as a thief stealths, not only is your pet going to become completely useless, but good luck hitting them with either of your bows or your axe. They lose conditions while stealthed (so many on demand condition removal to counter ranger's incredibly limited range of conditions) and regen health, become practically immune to ranger projectiles (which will be most ranger builds) and they get to perfectly position themselves before initiating combat again. Once they appear again (now free of the bleed stacks you worked so hard to put up - because stacking bleeds with a shortbow during a 1 v 1 is incredibly difficult) your pet will take very precious time to begin attacking again and they will burst you down a second time. It's a very lopsided match up for most ranger builds becauce the ranger class has either very niche or just plain terrible methods of dealing with stealth.

Even after the buff to signet of the hunt, ranger mobility is a joke compared to the thief.

Does Jonathan Sharp even play a ranger? Sure they have viable builds and can do well in PvP, but this summary is so dramatically distant from the current state of the ranger, it's hard to believe they actually intend it to be anything like this when they've designed it the way it's designed.

I find these comments hillarious. Most of the ranger talk is about the pet, and it's almost universilly agreed the pet is pathetic. Aside from a few gimmick builds and very niche uses, the pet is one of the worst implemented class mechanics (when it comes to being less than what it should be, stealth is the worst implemented because of culling, but that makes it more than it should be). There is very little pet diversity in specific arenas, dungeons usually involve ranged pets or bears, PvP usually involves dogs and general PvE is usually cats. Not once have I felt like swapping pets combines ways for me to most impact the fight. Most pets are near useless against moving targets (still) and few pets have skills which truly impact a fight in a meaningful and well implemented way.

The thief description basically reads as "designed to hard counter most rangers". Unless you have a perfectly timed barrage (combined with your opponent's poor positioning) or possibly the great sword (I doubt this even makes a difference) a thief is going to roll you. Rangers have shit AoE (outside of traps, which are very situational and not run by a lot of rangers) so as soon as a thief stealths, not only is your pet going to become completely useless, but good luck hitting them with either of your bows or your axe. They lose conditions while stealthed (so many on demand condition removal to counter ranger's incredibly limited range of conditions) and regen health, become practically immune to ranger projectiles (which will be most ranger builds) and they get to perfectly position themselves before initiating combat again. Once they appear again (now free of the bleed stacks you worked so hard to put up - because stacking bleeds with a shortbow during a 1 v 1 is incredibly difficult) your pet will take very precious time to begin attacking again and they will burst you down a second time. It's a very lopsided match up for most ranger builds becauce the ranger class has either very niche or just plain terrible methods of dealing with stealth.

Even after the buff to signet of the hunt, ranger mobility is a joke compared to the thief.

Does Jonathan Sharp even play a ranger? Sure they have viable builds and can do well in PvP, but this summary is so dramatically distant from the current state of the ranger, it's hard to believe they actually intend it to be anything like this when they've designed it the way it's designed.

You're absolutely right. The Thief description, about Thieves, was intentionally and purposefully written and designed to make Rangers inadequate, clearly.

If only the rest of GW2's player base was as un-biased, wise and knowledgeable about the pesky Rogue class as you.

Except for the fact that every assumption you made about Thieves is wholly wrong.

Condition removal upon entering Stealth? Very few Thieves opt for that trait tree, let alone that trait. Not really worth it. Most Thieves will remove conditions via Shadow Step, but then you're left with a long ass cool down and no Stun-breaker or condition removal. Immune to projectiles? What are you smoking dude? How does a Thief achieve immunity to projectiles? We have one skill that blocks projectiles that most often isn't even equipped.. We have no retaliation/ reflection.. But you complain about Thieves? As opposed to Guardians, Engineers and Warriors? I'm sorry what?! You complain about Thief regeneration, again, umadbro?! Look at Elementalist or Engineer, they have waaaaaaaaay more access to regeneration/ healing than we do. We have 2 main forms of regeneration, a short regen after Hide in Shadows, otherwise we have to trait 30 points into Shadow Arts. As for Assassin's Reward/ Leeching venoms, they aren't really worth taking simply because there are better traits and leeching venoms forces you to change your utility as well as invest in Deadly Arts.

And we get to position ourselves perfectly before initiating combat? Sure, against bad players. The good players who know anything about Thieves know how to predict our positioning which forces us to be more un-predictable and less capable of dealing damage. I mean it's not this hard.

People need to understand that Thieves sacrifice lots and i mean LOTS of survivability in order to do the crazy burst damage they have.

While maintaining the best mobility in the game and the best defensive ability in the game: stealth. Not to mention, if you can kill your enemy in a matter of seconds, a dead enemy can do no harm.

Stealth means enemies have no idea of where you are and have to guess. It means you control the battle, hands down, no questions asked. When you want to be in melee, you can get in melee. When you want to be at a range, you can be at a range. When you want to burst, you can burst without fear. When you want to run, you can run.